Basha Gerhards, Senior Vice President of Planning at Real Estate Board of New York, on City of Yes for Housing Opportunity zoning proposal
4:12:48
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159 sec
Basha Gerhards testifies in support of the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity proposal, highlighting its alignment with best practices and potential to create new housing opportunities. She commends several aspects of the proposal while also expressing concerns about certain elements and suggesting refinements.
- Supports transit-oriented development, accessory dwelling units, parking changes, and new R11 and R12 districts
- Expresses concern about the elimination of existing voluntary inclusionary housing programs and density reductions in certain districts
- Recommends including vesting and transition provisions to protect the existing housing pipeline and suggests refinements to bulk rules and parking regulations
- Support for the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity initiative
- Approval of transit-oriented development, accessory dwelling units, and parking changes
- Support for new R11 and R12 districts to unlock housing opportunities
- Support for expanded radius of potential receiving sites for landmark development rights
- Importance of Article 1 Chapter 5 changes to facilitate office-to-residential conversions
- Concern about elimination of existing voluntary inclusionary housing and inclusionary housing certificate program
- Opposition to reduction in maximum preventive density for market-rate housing in Lower Manhattan and Midtown districts
- Need for carefully crafted vesting and transition provisions to protect existing housing pipeline
- Recommendation for refinement of bulk rules to accommodate additional density
- Urge to treat conversions, new construction, and enlargements equally in determining parking
- Recognition of the proposal as a significant change to zoning text
[EXPERIMENTAL]
Which elements of City of Yes for Housing Opportunity were discussed in this testimony?
- UAP
- Residential Conversions
- Parking Mandates
- ADU
- Transit-Oriented Development
The following are AI-extracted quotes and reasoning about which elements of the proposal were discussed in this testimony.
This is a quick, close approximation. Occasionally, the connection between a testimony's transcript and specific elements of City Planning's proposal is tenuous.
Read about this AI-generated analysis here.
UAP
"The universal affordability preference has the potential to be well utilized in many neighborhoods deliver apartments."
This quote directly mentions the Universal Affordability Preference, which is a key element of the City of Yes For Housing Opportunity proposal.
Residential Conversions
"Among the most important components of this proposal are the proposed expansion of provisions of Article 1 chapter 5 and other related regulatory changes. These are aligned with the recommendations of the Office Adaptive Reuse Task force and will help facilitate more office to residential conversions."
This quote directly discusses the proposal's aim to facilitate office to residential conversions, which is a key aspect of the Residential Conversions element of the City of Yes For Housing Opportunity proposal.
Parking Mandates
"The reduction in parking mandates is an important change, and we urge the commission to treat equally conversions, new construction, and enlargements into terminating the amount of parking permitted."
This quote directly addresses the proposal's aim to reduce parking mandates, which is a key aspect of the Removing Parking Mandates element of the City of Yes For Housing Opportunity proposal.
ADU
"Remi supports the goals of the tax and commends the department for aligning the city zoning with best practices around transit oriented development, accessory dwelling units, and parking."
This quote explicitly mentions accessory dwelling units as one of the best practices that the proposal aligns with, which directly relates to the Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) element of the City of Yes For Housing Opportunity proposal.
Transit-Oriented Development
"Remi supports the goals of the tax and commends the department for aligning the city zoning with best practices around transit oriented development, accessory dwelling units, and parking."
This quote explicitly mentions transit oriented development as one of the best practices that the proposal aligns with, which directly relates to the Transit-Oriented Development element of the City of Yes For Housing Opportunity proposal.
About this analysis:
This analysis is done by AI that reasons whether or not a quote from the testimony discusses a particular element of the proposal.
All the prompts and data are open and available on Github.
You can search for testimonies that mentioned a specific element in the table on the main meeting page.
When an element is explicitly stated in the testimony (e.g. "Universal Affordability Preference" or "UAP"), the analysis is accurate.
But the connection between a quote from the testimony and an element of the proposal is sometimes implicit.
In these cases, the AI might eagerly label a testimony as discussing a proposal when the connection is tenuous, or it might omit it entirely.